The Offering does something very hard to do, and therefore special: it embraces grief without succumbing to it. Eleanor Kedney has written a very brave and bracing book, lively with lyrical energy and keen intelligence. There’s a quiet beauty of place here, too, and the love and nature poems are quite moving. What a fine, endearing debut!

~Philip Schultz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry

Eleanor Kedney’s poems constantly surprise the reader with flashes of sheer intelligence and attention to language. While her spirited work no doubt engages the intellect, these are also poems of the body and the voice; this book never disappoints. The sensuality of The Offering is unavoidable and ultimately joyous. There is a music here that sings and rings and lingers in the mind.

~Juliet Patterson, winner of the Nightboat Books Prize

Like the “the yellow caterpillar / I hold in my palm that will turn / into a Hummingbird Moth” Eleanor Kedney’s poems in this wonderful collection take flight from everyday experiences to reveal the unusual, which is to say a unique vision—which is why we come to poetry in the first place. Blending family with larger issue, these poems proceed with an intuitive blend of metaphors that stretch across narrative, meditative and dramatic setting and blending sometimes a technical, sometimes a colloquial language. Vision as eyesight—and these are very well observed settings—become visions in the visionary sense time and again, offerings as the title suggests that bring us to a passionate understanding of a world where nature and human nature echo one another.

~Richard Jackson, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellow, and winner of five Pushcart Prizes

"It's a beautiful book! I am awed by its straightforward simplicity, which spins complex webs around sound, imagery, meaning, and multiple layers of experience."

~Josie Gallup, Poet

"Thank you for your book, The Offering. It has many subtle touches of grief as it arises in our everyday ongoing lives, but the settings forthese emotions is beautiful. You address the regret we feel, and then so lightly suggest we "erase regret." Congratulations on this lovely collection." ~Judy Ray, Author of From Place to Place